Episodes
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There is no substitute for just showing up. Sometimes I wish there was one, but there just isnât.
The relentless polling that exhausted Americans during the last three months of the presidential campaigns never really swung all that much, no matter what the drama of the day was. By the time Labor Day arrived, the persuasion part of the national campaign was largely over.
I was skeptical of every undecided voter this year. The presidential choices were so stark, remaining voter indecisiveness was really about whether they would vote at all, not whether they would choose Harris or Trump.
10 million fewer Americans voted for president this year than in 2020. Based on the estimated adult population in the country of 271 million, that means about 54% of eligible voters participated in the presidential election. That is down from 60% in 2020 but is an identical participation rate to 2016.
The old adage that Democrats perform better when turnout is better rings true again this year. I believe the adage is true on a macro level, and the swings over the last three elections confirm that. But 2020 was a year like no other, so that likely deserves as asterisk more than a medal.
It is difficult for a civic minded person like me to accept that nearly half of Americans arenât participating in their inherited gift of self-governance. It is truly a gift. And when I say, âit is difficultâ to accept these shameful participation rates, I am editing out the necessary profanity while speaking through grinding teeth. What is truly difficult to me, is forgiving those who donât show up for this most basic civic duty.
Thatâs America. And that data is maddening in and of itself. But then thereâs Indiana.
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Combine the adjectives of anger, fear and apathy to describe any audience, and it predictably equates to trouble. Those descriptors are the features of the American electorate today.
Imagine any organization of people, of any kind, that makes its decisions while grounded in those emotions. What could that collective mindset possibly accomplish? While Iâm sure there are some things, they would be few, and for those few, I expect the value of these accomplishments would be minimal, or simply the result of dumb luck. Really dumb luck.
This yearâs election, the latest in a string of the most important election of our lifetimes, delivered a litany of results featuring contradictions and just plain thoughtlessness. But thatâs what happens when decision makers are mad, scared and donât care about productive outcomes.
Donald Trump returns to the White House in January for his second, and last, presidential term. He will be inaugurated two weeks after the four-year anniversary of the coup he inspired at the scene of the crime. Iâm sorry, I meant crimes, plural. Iâm sure the crowd on January 20, 2025, will be an interesting one. There will almost certainly be people in attendance who are on parole because of what they did the last time they were there.
The January 6, 2021, crowd was angry. With rage and denial over their candidateâs defeat, they exploded. No surprise, really. It was and continues to be a coalition united by shared grievances.
Itâs remarkable how committed that coalition is to the bit. But what we are learning about the bit, albeit the hard way, is that those who are fueled by grievance will never be satisfied. To satisfy its grievance-based mindset is to eliminate its purpose, its usefulness and its energy. After all these years of watching the MAGA cult, this truth has become abundantly clear.
So, the anger, and all of the things that come with it, is the cultâs most valuable feature.
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Episodes manquant?
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Several weeks ago, two board members from the Pre-Law Association at IU came to my office and asked if I could prepare a workshop for the group in late October. I generally say yes to these kinds of things, and I had done one last year for the group about building and maintaining personal networks. Yea, I know that sounds boring, but I deliver it with a great deal of charisma.
This year though, they had a real challenge for me. They wanted me to help them prepare for the inevitable and uncomfortable conversations they were predicting this Thanksgiving. Yes, they know. These are juniors and seniors in college, which means they were primarily juniors and seniors in high school four years ago. Most of them werenât old enough to vote in 2020, but they remember Thanksgiving that year.
I donât talk politics with my students. I teach speech, writing and advocacy. Politics is not part of the curriculum of any of my classes and it wouldnât endear me with students who agree with my viewpoint any way. Further, I wouldnât want to lose credibility with the students who disagree with my perspective, because contrary to popular belief, I want to teach them advanced communication skills just as much.
That clarification intensifies the request for me. What they needed was help having difficult conversations. Most do. But in my academic work, I am concerned that we arenât connecting enough at all. This concern comes from my belief that there is no better way to come to know a person than by having a real conversation with them.
Zara Abrams wrote about the research being done in the arena for the American Psychological Association last year. The opening of her article says it well: âConversations hold immense power. They help us form new connections and deepen existing ones.â That may not inspire a loud, âAmen!â from you, but it does from me.
And being a âloudâ listener is one of the keys to a better conversation. Yes, I mean throwing out the occasional âamenâ or âpreachâ to let your conversation partner know youâre listening. But a simple and thoughtful âhmm,â or an encouraging âmm-hmm,â can be just as productive. Those gestures send valuable messages to your talking partner.
Listening, and showing that you are listening, is the key. And while being a loud listener is helpful, asking questions is gold. Nothing leads to conversational connections better than asking questions.
The problem with questions is that all questions arenât created equally.
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Every so often, the âbeatâ I cover treats me to a trip down memory lane to the time when I was a public servant. I was a much younger man when I left the government to become a consultant in 2002. And though the details surrounding my old stomping grounds are different, the regulatory compact remains unchanged.
On October 10th, U.S. Senator Mike Braun sent a letter to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission expressing his concern about AES Indianaâs petition to transition its two remaining coal-fired generating units to natural gas. Itâs the kind of letter I used to receive every week as the executive director of the agency, although this one is a bit more awkward than usual.
I could numb Hoosier brains with all the ways the IURC works, but I wonât. The important thing to know about the agency is that it is in the bad news business. It regulates utility rates. Thatâs right, when rates go up, the commission is responsible. Luckily, it also approves all of the times rates go down, but Iâm having a hard time remembering when that ever happened.
The agency exists and is organized the way it is so that politicians like governors and senators donât have to deliver this specific type of bad news. Trust me, I spent several years giving ratepayers bad utility news, and the elected officials in the statehouse back then appreciated my work. They would beat me up in public over my insensitive quips to their constituents, then afterward, they would whisper in my ear, âthank you.â
So, when elected officials begin staking out positions on what will ultimately be the decision of the appointed utility commissioners, pay attention. Itâs dangerous political territory.
Leslie Bonilla MĆ©niz wrote how âBraun weighs in on utilityâs coal plant conversion askâ for the Indiana Capital Chronicle last week. Is an entire article necessary to explain an ambitious politicianâs letter to some sleepy state agency? Actually, itâs worthy of two.
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Election Day is only three weeks away, and as Donald Trumpâs third full campaign comes to a close, American voters have a pretty good idea who he is. Imagine having a conversation with a voter anywhere and hearing them say, âI wonder what this Trump fellow is really like.â
One could just listen to the tunes that surround him. Itâs not a long playlist.
Vice President Kamala Harris was oddly playing a little bit of catch up when she entered the race as the Democrats presumptive nominee in July. Those of us in the political class knew her well, but apparently some voters needed to learn about or adjust to this late entry to the contest. Itâs hard for me to accept something as absurd as that, but Iâm working through it.
While large numbers of voters didnât know enough about Harris, I have to admit that I didnât know much about her campaignâs theme song, BeyoncĂ©âs âFreedom.â Yea, Iâd heard it, but I never really listened to it. Itâs played at the places I go. The restaurants, stores and the gyms where I spend time have had it in rotation since it came out in 2016.
âHey! Iâma keep runninâ cause a winner donât quit on themselves,â is the last line of the chorus that hits the hardest for me. Put those words with the power of BeyoncĂ©âs sound, look and aura, and you get a walk up, and a mic drop song all wrapped up into one. Itâs been used both ways for many causes over the years because of it.
At the other partyâs events, in some other swing state, the song being played is, gasp, âGod Bless the U.S.A.â by Lee Greenwood. Iâve kept it to myself for a long time now, but that ends today. It is simply an awful song. Admittedly, itâs simply not my genre, but I donât know whose it is. I wonât hear it anywhere I go, and if I did, I would immediately leave. Itâs a rip off of âGod Bless America,â another song that never comes up in anyoneâs shuffle.
My favorite line from it is, ââCause the flag still stands for freedom, and they canât take that away.â Aah, the generic âthey.â Thatâs who we need to unite against, whoever âtheyâ are. We need to wrap ourselves in the flag and then get out there and bless something. And the music? It sounds like the kind of stuff that was sold late at night on a 1980âs infomercial. Itâs just not cool.
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I watched the first Indiana gubernatorial debate with great interest on October 2nd. The hour long event featuring Jennifer McCormick (D) and Mike Braun (R) was only a few minutes in when I could tell this was likely going to be a good night for Democrats. Only a few minutes later, I found myself disappointed because I knew this important moment was not going to be seen by as many Hoosier voters as it should have been.
Americans expect more from political debates than we often get. This year is quite an exception. Both presidential debates delivered, at a minimum, a clear contrast between the participants that should drive decision making for voters. President Joe Bidenâs awful debate performance in late June led to a rallying cry from many in his own party for him to drop out of the race. The performance illustrated his greatest vulnerability; that he was just too old for the job.
Importantly though, polling data after that bad night didnât move all that much. One could conclude it didnât matter as much to voters as it did to the political class. More likely though, it confirmed pessimism about Bidenâs ability to inspire movement in his already sagging position. His eventual and historic withdrawal from the race, and the rallying around Kamala Harris drastically changed everything.
Debates can do that, though they rarely do. Usually, the contests are exercises in bias confirmation. Dr. Conor Dawling, professor of political science at the University of Buffalo wrote, âDebates can help solidify, or reinforce, choices for folks who are already fairly to very certain which candidate they intend to support.â Yes, this is what we normally get out of them.
However, this yearâs battles have delivered more than that several times now.
The McCormick/Braun debate last week is one of them. Any objective viewer should have been able to see several things. McCormick had a better grasp of the details of the job. She was better prepared for the predictable questions, and she was confident in her delivery from start to finish.
Braun gave, at best, a lackluster performance that raised more questions than it answered. I first wrote that the Republicans were running a campaign about nothing in its quest for the governorâs office last October. This is the third time I will remind Hoosiers of that sad truth.
I have seen gubernatorial campaigns, and the governing strategies that followed, which seemed to be designed around a âdonât make any mistakesâ sort of game plan. Former Governor Evan Bayh was committed to the strategy, and it served him well. Former Governor Mike Pence was also committed to it, though he did make a few large, damaging mistakes during his one term in office.
Braunâs biggest mistake last week, on admittedly a much smaller scale, was comparable to Bidenâs June failure. He appeared unprepared for the predictable questions, and his lack of sharpness made him appear old, a critique that he has largely avoided so far. His non-answers to one specific item made it abundantly clear to me that he would not be defending recent comments made by his running mate, Republican lieutenant governor nominee, Micah Beckwith.
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What is the market rate for a governor? Well, it depends on the market of course. In New York, the rate is $250,000 a year. In Maine, itâs $70,000. That makes perfect sense, doesnât it? These two states might as well be on two different planets after all. It takes five whole hours to drive from Albany to Augusta, a lovely drive that weaves around Boston, where the Massachusetts governor makes $185,000, before the path follows a stretch along the Atlantic coast.
The real answer is there is no âmarket,â and therefore, there is no âmarket rate.â
Whitney Downard reported last week for the Indiana Capital Chronicle the details on the new salaries of several Hoosier statewide elected officials. They are hefty raises, featuring the new salary of the governor, of $221,024, making it one of the highest paid in the nation. One market-based argument as to why that is outrageously high could be that the Indiana governor is constitutionally weak and should therefore be compensated weakly.
But letâs be serious. The new salary is still pretty low when considering the demands of the job. So is New Yorkâs. And Maineâs? That salary is absurd.
However, and if I could scream that word I would, being elected to a high-profile position absolutely creates opportunity. Itâs just difficult to quantify. These jobs arenât really jobs. Yes, if done even remotely well, they are work, and a lot of it. But in a market sense, they are more aptly described as âplatforms,â not occupations. And so, the salary matters far less than it otherwise would.
Governor Eric Holcomb will end his second term at the end of the year, never receiving the new salary. Tough break, guv. But there will be opportunity for him when his political career is over, assuming this is the end of that. I predict he will do quite well, probably through some sort of âjob,â coupled with other income-generating ventures that are minimally reported but highly profitable. After a long career of low and modestly paid political positions, he knows people, he has skills and value, and this is America. Following his post-governor life would be important to Hoosiers, if for no other reason, to contextualize what serving as governor is truly worth.
These salaries, while they are specifically what taxpayers finance, donât mean much in the end.
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Polling data takes up more space in my world than campaign ads do. Itâs truly remarkable. In any presidential election year, I am normally exhausted by every candidateâs pitch on TV by now. Thirty seconds at a time, the sound bites should have already eroded a precious sliver of my soul, and possibly yours as well.
Not this year. Not even on my chosen social platforms am I overwhelmed with the ads, barring a few odd, out-of-state exceptions. Nope. Polling data updates, some reliable and some absurd, is what I see most. Maybe itâs just my algorithm. Maybe Iâve been identified as an unpersuadable, data wonk.
Or maybe the red-state-message in this red state is the problem.
A poll released last week by Destiny Wells, the Democrat nominee for attorney general, was the first public one showing details of two statewide races. The pollster, Lake Research Partners, is reputable. The sampling was appropriate, made up of 51% Republican voters and 36% Democrat. Wells only trails incumbent AG, Todd Rokita, 44-41%. Name identification for the incumbent is understandably twice as high as it is for Wells, which leads me to conclude that the more people know Rokita, the more people donât like him.
Rokitaâs low numbers are easy to explain. He is primarily known for performative antics that deliver nothing of value to Hoosiers, led by his unhinged attack on Dr. Caitlin Bernard for doing her job as an obstetrician. He has solicited complaints against state government, otherwise known as his own client. He has never seen a pro-Trump lawsuit he didnât volunteer to join. And his law license has been regularly in jeopardy for unlawyerly behavior.
He's simply unpopular. Go figure.
The Indiana governorâs race was also included in the poll, and not surprisingly, it too shows a dead heat. Republican Mike Braunâs 41% to Democrat Jennifer McCormickâs 39% is inside the margin of error. Libertarian Donald Rainwaterâs 9% support matters too.
McCormick is polling seven points better than the 2020 Democratic candidate performed. The other two parties are lagging last electionâs finish. Thatâs a meaningful turn.
But Indianaâs still red right? Trump is still the favorite here for president, right? Yes. But his polling strength is also weakening here. He won Indiana by 19 points in 2016, by 16 in 2020, and is polling only 10 points ahead of Kamala Harris in this poll, 52%-42%. Again, this is a meaningful turn.
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Bill Murray once said, âItâs hard to win an argument with a smart person. Itâs damn near impossible to win one with a stupid person.â For the objective viewer, whoever that is, I expect Tuesday nightâs debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and Donald Trump to feel like this. Afterward, those tuning in to root for their chosen candidate will likely declare victory.
Harris supporters know her and will likely not be surprised by the things she says or the demeanor she displays. Even if she stumbles a little or fails to land the knockout punches Democrats are hoping for, it is unlikely she will lose anyone already on the Harris for President campaign train.
Oh, and she will make her case with the facts. That should matter, plenty, but weâll just have to wait and see about that.
The contrast Tuesday nightâs argument will display most distinctly will be exactly that: fact versus fiction.
Trump will likely try to make his case with hopes of exposing some damaging weakness in Harris. Can he make her seem weak? Can he make her seem unintelligent? Whether heâs having one of his high energy days or another one of the growing number of low ones, itâs unlikely he will make her anything at all.
Most of all though, this debate will be between two people so different in sharpness, age and ability, they wonât appear to be even speaking the same language.
My wife took me to the beach this weekend to celebrate my birthday. On Saturday, an average size boat approached the area where we were camped and dropped its anchor. It had two oversized flags flying from the back of it. One was an old, faded U.S. Marines flag, and the other was a âTrump 2024â flag, that looked fresh out of the box. I couldnât help wondering what he paid for that one, and how many other versions he had previously bought.
I go to the beach to daydream, so after I cycled through the economics of buying the junk his candidate peddles so shamelessly, I started focusing on the old flag.
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Who is credited with founding the holiday we celebrated Monday? According to History.com, some say it was a man named Peter McGuire, of the American Federation of Labor. Others say it was a man named Matthew Maguire, of the Central Labor Union who proposed it first. If spoken with an average gait, itâs safe to speak either name and still safely sound correct.
Unions have been on a winning streak recently, a trend I expect to continue for the foreseeable future. The trend is good for America, even when itâs inconvenient.
I rolled my eyes a little, OK, a lot, when the Hollywood writers and actors went on strike last year. It was the first time I had a personal stake in a walkout. I had done some, and hoped to do more, consulting on a film that was set to begin shooting in August. The strike caused the project to be shelved, ending my irrational fantasies of fame and fortune. That movie would have been bigger than âBarbie,â according to me.
What could these people who have already âmade itâ possibly have to strike about? Does Brad Pitt really need better terms? No. But the Writers Guild of America, followed by the Screen Actors Guild, are filled with creators and workers similar to every other industry. And just like industries whose labor struggles have been historically familiar, Hollywoodâs impasse was also existential. These strikes became important because they have broadened the discussion.
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Itâs the most wonderful time of the year! The fall semester starts this week, and I might be a little too excited. I need to remember to have a little sympathy for my new students, particularly those in my 8:00 am class on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For the rest of their lives, when they hear the term, âmorning person,â they will immediately think of me.
Even when my professional world revolved around legislation in the Statehouse, I rarely had business in the realm of education policy. Over the years, I only watched that stuff as a citizen. My sons went to Catholic school, so I felt a little detached from the annual wrangling over what the next moves from the Indiana General Assembly and the Indiana Department of Education would be.
Lately though, the biggest two moves seem to have a common theme: aiming lower.
Last year, Senate Bill 202 was a headline-maker that had folks in the realm of higher education all worked up. Conservative lawmakers were trying to address the reality that college professors tend to be more ideologically liberal or progressive than they prefer. You know, leftists like me are âindoctrinatingâ young people, not teaching them. Itâs a âproblemâ worthy of an eye roll.
From the perspective of a public university faculty member, I only cared a little about the bill in a practical sense. It never appeared to be impactful on what or how I teach. I already make space for diverse ideological viewpoints when appropriate, and honestly, it matters only in the rarest of circumstances. The âproblemâ the legislature is trying to solve here is incredibly overblown, and their solution is, in fact, not one. More importantly, that non-solution is expensive.
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Political conventions are not for me. I went to my first one, at the state level, last month and I thought I was going to break out in a rash from what felt like life-threatening inefficiency. Of course, I oppose the existence of big graduations, weddings and funerals too, so maybe the problem is me.
I will begrudgingly admit that all of these ceremonies have a purpose.
The Democratic National Convention is meaningful this year, even to me. Iâm still glad Iâm not going, and I will only watch it a little. But I will be watching the reaction. I will be watching that like a hawk, since thatâs all that really matters.
The 2020 conventions were both turned into Zoom meetings due to the pandemic. The âpartyâ part of the political parties was as bland and uninspiring as the year itself was. Some watched them on TV, though viewership was down across the board except Fox for the Republicans and MSNBC for the Democrats. I tried to watch, I guess, but I donât remember either one of them.
Even so, voter turnout was juiced in 2020. And when turnout rises, Democrats tend to perform better. That rule applied to Indiana just like everywhere else in America. Pay attention to every race in Indiana that appears to be close at this moment. The new excitement on the Democrat side coming from the new nominees, and now the convention, will help the party in all of the close races.
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Indianapolis has had a bright spotlight on it in 2024. The Olympic swimming time trials in Lucas Oil Stadium, the NBA All-Star game, and the arrival of the biggest name in sports, Caitlin Clark. Now the city is ground zero for something shameful.
Mayor Joe Hogsett is under fire for his mishandling of numerous sexual harassment allegations made against former Chief Deputy Mayor Thomas Cook. The first known allegations were made in 2017, and in recent weeks, extensive reporting has been done on the matter by the Indianapolis Star and Mirror Indy. What we already know from their reporting is terrible.
More terrible news is coming. Count on it.
The book, âPrimary Colors: A Novel of Politicsâ and its movie adaptation have been on my mind the last few weeks. This roman Ă© clef, French for ânovel with a key,â was first published by Anonymous in 1996. Itâs an insiderâs tale of a fictitious southern governor, Jack Stanton, and his 1992 primary campaign for the presidency.
Read the book or watch the movie. âStantonâ is Bill Clinton. The author was later to be revealed as Joe Klein, a columnist for Time magazine who covered Clintonâs real-life 1992 campaign. The book detailing this corrupt, womanizing character, and importantly, his campaign team, was published more than two years before the world met Monica Lewinsky.
Lauren Roberts was a deputy campaign manager on Hogsettâs 2015 reelection campaign. She was apparently the first to complain about Cookâs harassment via email in 2017. Hogsettâs initial unresponsiveness led to her direct, in-person report to the mayor in 2019. Hogsett claims action was taken, though it wasnât ever communicated with Roberts. She has since relocated to Denver. But she kept all of the receipts.
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The impact of even a provocative social media post doesnât often linger with me for long. In a presidential election year, even less so. But two of them struck me this week, neither of them mentioning Indiana politics, but to this Hoosier columnist, they feel entirely about us.
The first post came from a politico named Mike Madrid on Friday. Madrid is a Latino campaign consultant, a former Republican and co-founder of the anti-Trump group, The Lincoln Project. He wrote: âThere was a time when it could be argued that not all Trump voters were racist, but they were comfortable voting for a racist. Not anymore.â
Madrid was referring to Donald Trumpâs outburst during an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists convention last week questioning Vice President Kamala Harrisâs rather uncomplicated and well documented ancestry. The racist nature of it was remarkable in and of itself. What is more remarkable, however, is how GOP leaders immediately began repeating the attacks.
Even those who would rather Trump not say these offensive things out loud also didnât object. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, âA time comes when silence is betrayal.â
At the top of the GOP ticket in Indiana this election year, are three Trump sycophants: Mike Braun for governor, Jim Banks for U.S. Senate, and Todd Rokita for attorney general. They are all unapologetically devoted to anything and everything the former president says and does. I want their views confirmed on the Harris issue, though I think itâs obvious.
These three Republicans donât cross their leader. And as Madrid implied, Trumpâs racism can no longer be shrugged off as a bug. Itâs a feature.
The second post lingering with me came from Georgia Governor Brian Kemp.
Trump was campaigning in Atlanta on Sunday, where he is under indictment for his attempts to steal the 2020 election. While on the stage and in his own social media posts, the former president reignited his attacks on Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Kemp, and oddly, Kempâs wife for their collective disloyalty. It was as odd as the Harris ancestry attack in that it makes no sense how it helps Trumpâs campaign. Kemp and Raffensperger are both extremely popular Republicans in that swing state. They both responded, but Kempâs response was troubling.
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I was in the airport two Sunday afternoons ago when I first saw the news that Joe Biden was ending his presidential campaign. I was still there when he followed up a few minutes later with his endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris. By the time I happily put my head on my own pillow that night after a long trip, anyone paying attention could already feel it coming.
Everything about the 2024 presidential election changed last week.
In that week, the newly launched Harris for President campaign raised over $200 million, gathered 170,000 new volunteers, held 2,300 events in battleground states, and in two days on TikTok, attracted 2.9 million followers. Those are some âwowâ stats. But none of the data really captures the moment contextually.
Every Democrat who matters endorsed her in that first week. The Clintons, the Obamas, and the leaders of both congressional caucuses have jumped on board. BeyoncĂ© has lent the campaign use of her song, âFreedom,â and Iâve heard it dozens of times already.
Then there are the Zoom rallies. It started with a gathering of black women on July 21st, with over 44,000 participants that led to $1.5 million raised. Black men followed the next day with over 20,000. White women refused to be left out when their call last Thursday had 160,000 participants that raised $8.5 million. White men had 50,000 registered for a call Monday night and that number was still growing as I wrote this.
Thatâs excitement. Thatâs momentum. And in a campaign that the Republican nominee has long reduced to a battle of ratings and rallies, a race he was winning before Bidenâs departure, he is now getting obliterated. Even polling has begun to shift, with Fox News releasing a poll on Sunday showing favorability flipping in several battleground states to now favor Harris.
Democrats would have always been happy to run solely on the Biden administrationâs record. Itâs a good one. But the campaign was flailing because it had been reduced to the issue of the presidentâs age. And the truth is, he is too old to persuade Americans that heâs not. Iâm glad he stopped trying.
With the uncertainty of a path forward removed on the Democrat side, the post-convention honeymoon for Republicans ended quicker than it should have too. Ten days ago, they were acting like they had already won. They arenât anymore.
Itâs been a whirlwind for Republicans the last three weeks. Letâs recap.
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We had planned a trip to London and Paris in 2020, but it was cancelled by the pandemic. Until last week, we hadnât left the country since before that awful year. Ironically, the thought of visiting or even living someplace else has never taken up more space in my soul. Even my latest book is fundamentally about the mysterious âwhat ifsâ that come from how life might be different if it were simply spent âsomeplace else.â
We finally got to go last week. As a much younger person, I used to wonder why people would even go on trips like this, when there really wasnât some specific reason. Now, I feel true sympathy for those who never do.
First of all, the enormity of London alone is striking, but the best thing about its size is the variety of everything in it. For example, I never thought of London as a great food town. Wrong. There is no food on earth that canât be found there. The restaurants seem smaller, but the pubs, cafes and ethnic offerings are literally everywhere. I wasnât looking for Uzbek or Sri Lankan food, but now I know the most convenient place to find it.
In just six days though, the giant city had shrunk for us, primarily because of its phenomenal train system. No area or neighborhood was difficult to get to, including a little town called Paris. Navigating it also couldnât have been easier.
As a world traveler, Iâm a novice. I havenât been many places. Not yet. But every new place I go these days is less of a vacation and more of an adventure. Seeing unfamiliar places, and spending time with unfamiliar people is the most provocative way for anyone to grow. Every adventure teaches me something unexpected. It is so predictable that I purposely make fewer and fewer plans on each new trip. Why bother? The best parts canât be planned anyway.
Visiting the Churchill War Rooms Museum, however, was definitely planned. Iâm in the words business, English is my language, and Winston Churchill is likely the greatest orator who has ever lived. Yea, yea, he led and won the big war, but his weapon of choice was language.
Our last exhibit there was a display of the anti-Churchill propaganda that was distributed in Nazi Germany and Japan during the war. None of it was all that surprising, particularly by todayâs standards, but a museum staffer approached us there and began explaining the depth of the exhibitâs importance.
This elderly man pointed out the racism built into the drawings and the impact of its lessons in faraway places, especially on young people growing up with the imagery. He asked us to imagine young people who only knew of the British through this messaging and how difficult it must have been to overcome for generations. He analogized the struggle then to the one today with Russiaâs Vladimir Putin, the invasion of Ukraine, and the valuable mission of NATO. My wife and I enjoyed his lesson, but I was fascinated with how comfortably he went there with two people from America who could have just as easily been hostile to his suggestions.
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Thomas Matthew Crooks took his fatherâs AR-15, climbed a building near former President Donald Trumpâs Saturday rally and got several shots off in Trumpâs direction before being killed by the U.S. Secret Service. The gun was purchased legally in Pennsylvania by Crooksâ father. Early background reports indicate that the 20-year-old gunman was a loner, a registered Republican, but had also donated to at least one left leaning organization.
Thereâs no evidence of any political component to anything he did.
Now that I have covered the basics of what occurred, I have one primary question today. What part of those details, if one had precisely predicted them a week, month or year earlier, would have sounded impossible or unlikely at all? Would any of us have struggled to envision such a thing?
I wouldnât have. Not for one moment.
I first heard the news while fading in and out of an early evening nap on Saturday. A text from a friend at 6:26 pm said âTrump got shot!â I quickly sat up and turned on the news to see it was real. Even though some weirdos on social media committed to doubting its validity for far too long, it was clearly real.
None of it surprised me. I did not feel a single second of astonishment for the first hour I was glued to the screen.
Yes, violent crime is declining in America. However, with the suffocating presence of guns here, particularly the absurdly common AR-15, coupled with a largely unresearched mental health phenomena of these suicide shooters, these horrific episodes have become embedded into our daily lives.
When was the last time a shooting like this really surprised any of us?
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As a new adjunct professor six years ago, the class I was asked to teach was titled âPublic law and government relations.â It was a class designed to teach how ideas become laws. The students were public affairs majors, just like I was, thirty years earlier.
Explaining the âhowâ part is complicated. Iâm forced to make hard choices on how to prioritize my lessons. I have learned to focus on two primary ideas: One, that governing is choosing; and two, there is no bigger asset or burden in the public policy process more powerful than time.
The best contemporary policy example to use for understanding American democratic processes is the debate on womenâs reproductive health freedom. Not just because of the Dobbs or Roe decisions, but because it is a policy that is truly a governing choice, unimpacted by infinite conditions beyond decision-makersâ control.
Oh sure, we watch Schoolhouse Rock and discuss the school bus railroad crossing example dozens of times too. But if you recall from the video, the âlocal congressmanâ uses a typewriter to create the famous âIâm Just a Bill.â As good as the video is, it's old.
Every politician claims a vote for them will lead to a better economy. Sometimes they even explain how. But the truth is that the âeconomyâ has too many variables in it for that platform to be certain. Foreign affairs policies are almost as unpredictable. Itâs hilarious to hear Donald Trump and his lemmings explain how the world will absolutely cow tow to America when heâs in charge, or even how it did before, as if none of us paid attention way back when.
Eleven states are headed for referenda votes in November on constitutional proposals to create or protect abortion rights. Nine of them were initiated by voter petition. Four of those states already effectively have bans in place. Even Arkansas reached their threshold of signatures last week just before that stateâs deadline.
In states where voters can vote, they either already are, or soon will. And because of the Dobbs decision, a vote on reproductive freedom is no longer a hypothetical discussion. There is data to drive the thinking of those clinging to rational thought on the matter.
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I have never met anyone who I believed to be intelligent who was also humorless. When comedian Nate Bargatze took the stage last week at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis he spent a few moments making sure the crowd knew he was not an educated man.
Bargatze is intelligent though. And heâs as funny they come.
In contrast, the Supreme Court of the United States was once regarded as the sage, learned body, epitomizing intelligence, credibility and thoughtfulness. This once esteemed tribunal personified its âsupremacyâ for rational, unhumorous reasons. However, as of Monday, July 1, 2024, its self-desecration is complete, and has now become a laughingstock.
The conservative majority of the court has twisted itself into knots to help Donald Trump with the absurdity that he should have some immunity from prosecution for his criminal acts. The mantra of âno man is above the lawâ ended this week in America.
The 6-3 Trump v. United States ruling produced dissenting language in a tone unheard of in the courtâs storied history. Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote on behalf of the minority, âWith fear for our democracy, I dissent.â
The cloud of this debacle will feel like a diversion soon though, because thereâs so much more.
Letâs discuss nitrous oxide. Youâve likely heard of it. Itâs what dentists give patients to relax them before needles and drills are used to bludgeon their mouths. Itâs laughing gas. Itâs fun. And it should never be confused with nitrogen oxides, which is what the Environmental Protection Agency regulates to control pollution.
Justice Neil Gorsuch famously mistook one for the other, five times, in his Ohio v. EPA ruling on Thursday. Then on Friday, SCOTUS ruled that courts are better positioned to do what regulatory experts have broadly done since 1984. In Loper Bright v. Raimondo, the supremes ruled that courts are more suited to decide anything and everything, scientific and complicated, than actual experts. Experts like those who know the difference between pollutants and laughing gas.
The 1984 decision, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, established what has become known as the Chevron deference. The late Justice Antonin Scalia was a notorious supporter of the deference, because it provided a dependable âbackground rule of law against which Congress can legislate.â He believed Congress wanted agencies, or subject matter experts, to exercise discretion on the implementation of their laws. Iâve been a regulator and a legislative consultant, and I know this to be historically true.
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Life in Stephen Kingâs Shawshank State Prison, at its best, is mundane, repetitive, and stagnant. As is the state of politics in Indiana. Surviving either or both, doesnât require lightning to strike. It requires hope. Hope that can lead to a movement.
Democrats in Indiana nominated former Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jennifer McCormick as their nominee for governor in Mayâs primary. Last week, McCormick announced her preferred running mate as former Democrat state representative, Terry Goodin.
The latter was a mistake.
There are three unrelenting, unequivocal policy issues that define what a Democrat is in 2024. To be credible with Democrat voters these days, a candidate must support womenâs reproductive freedom, equality for all minority communities, and common sense gun safety measures. This isnât the entire platform, but when asking a candidate about their support for these three, they are simple âyes/noâ questions. And the answer to them must be an unwavering âyes.â
I wonât vote for any candidate, for any office, who answers any of those questions with a âno,â a âsort of,â or even a âgenerally.â
Yes, that purity test applies to those running for city council, school board and county auditor. Why? Because politics, like culture, is a continuum. That pro-life county auditor might run for U.S. Senate in two years. That pro-gun rights school board member might run for Congress. And then the weakness becomes trouble.
The truth is that these deficiencies are always trouble. Theyâre indicators a party is willing to bargain with its own morals.
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